Luftwaffe accounts of "The Forked Tailed Devil

[LEADPIG]

Some interesting pilot accounts i found from various books that survivng WW2 aces have written about their accounts with the P-38 during the war.

   Also a interesting one by Adolf Galland:

'P-38s were not difficult to handle in combat. Many, many P-38 pilots are angry with me about this statement, but it's true.'

Adolf Galland
 

 1) "Johannes Steinhoff, Kommodore of JG 77 in North Africa, Sicily and Italy, flying Bf 109s, had this to say about the P-38, 'I had encountered the long-range P-38 Lightning fighter during the last few days of the North African campaign, Our opinion of this twin-boomed, twin-engined aircraft was divided. Our old Messerschmitts were still, perhaps, a little faster. But pilots who had fought them said that the Lightnings were capable of appreciably tighter turns and that they would be on your tail before you knew what was happening. The machine guns mounted on the nose supposedly produced a concentration of fire from which there was no escape. Certainly the effect was reminiscent of a watering can when one of those dangerous apparitions started firing tracer, and it was essential to prevent them manoeuvring into a position from which they could bring their guns to bear." P-38 Lightning, by Jeffrey Ethell/The Great Book of WWII Airplanes, Bonanaza Books, 1984, page 21.

2) "Oberleutnant Franz Steigler, a 28 victory ace in the Bf 109 with JG 27 in North Africa, said the P-38s "could turn inside us with ease and they could go from level flight to climb almost instantaneously. We lost quite a few pilots who tried to make an attack and then pull up. The P-38s were on them at once. They closed so quickly that there was little one could do except roll quickly and dive down, for while the P-38 could turn inside us, it rolled very slowly through the first 5 or 10 degrees of bank, and by then we would already be gone. One cardinal rule we never forgot was: avoid fighting a P-38 head on. That was suicide. Their armament was so heavy and their firepower so murderous, that no one ever tried that type of attack more than once."P-38 Lightning, by Jeffrey Ethell/The Great Book of WWII Airplanes, Bonanaza Books, 1984Pages 21,22.

3. (Heinz Knoke description of a duel with a P-38 (from "I Flew for the Fuhrer"):

"...At once I peel off and dive into the Lightnings below. They spot us
and swing round towards us to meet the attack.... Then we are in a madly
milling dogfight...it is a case of every man for himself. I remain on the
tail of a Lightning for several minutes. It flies like the devil himself,
turning, diving, and climbing almost like a rocket. I am never able to
fire more than a few pot-shots...."

[Connection]

I'm sure Galland got supplied with the best planes Germany could produce, and maybe as important, the best quality fuel germany could plunder combined with Galland's ruthless efficiency, its no surprise he and his gruppen never had trouble with them.

The average P-38 pilot was probably not pushing the P-38 to the edge maybe Galland himself could have, and worst of all, P-38 squadrons in Europe were using lower quality petrol not suited for the plane.

The other gruppens did not think so lightly of the plane, as we can see from almost any other instance of luftwaffe pilot accounts. They probably were using their planes on the same supply conditions.

[SFCHONDO]

Good post, Hopefully nuggethead Glasses will read and understand, assuming this was intended for him.

[Furball]

4. Herr Wolfgang von Wolfgang, JG69
"...the p-38 is a fat piece of junk, i love shooting pieces off of them and making them explode"

[LEADPIG]

Originally posted by SFCHONDO
Good post, Hopefully nuggethead Glasses will read and understand, assuming this was intended for him.

Thanks, i love making my fellow AH, heads smile

[Guppy35]

Originally posted by Furball
4. Herr Wolfgang von Wolfgang, JG69
"...the p-38 is a fat piece of junk, i love shooting pieces off of them and making them explode"

Bah!  That's nothing!

"I wreck em faster then Lockheed can build em!"  CorkyJr, 80th FS "Headhunters" P38G Driver

[wipass]

waiting for fanboi ack ack to turn up

wipass

[BigR]

nice post...but you wont ever turn a hardened Germanphile like Glasses.  In his mind the 109 turns like a Fokker DR1, climbs like the Space Shuttle, and has the armament of the A10. How could such a superior piece of German machinery ever lose to something made and flown by inbred American swine?

[Ack-Ack]

Originally posted by wipass
waiting for fanboi ack ack to turn up

wipass

Nah...I'd rather just sit back and watch you Luftwhiners whine.



ack-ack

[straffo]

Stop speading legends Leadpig,

There is like usual more than one opinion,even from the same person :

Generalleutnant Galland :

'The Lightning (P38) This aircraft was very fast and had a good rate of climb below 20,000 feet. Visibility backwards , downwards and over the engines was very poor.It was considered a good strafer due to its armament ,visibilty,speed and silent motors.Its main drawback were its vulnerability and lack of maneuverability.On the deck, it could out-run the me.109 and fw190.German fighters would always attack the P38s in preference to other allied escort fighters.'

[Angus]

Rall had something similar to say, but later was impressed when he flew the machine. Well, it was a bigger target....
But again, he was very impressed with the P47, P51 and the Spitfire.
He refers to the 109 as somewhat insufficient in fighting those.

[Connection]

Originally posted by straffo
Stop speading legends Leadpig,

There is like usual more than one opinion,even from the same person :

Generalleutnant Galland :

'The Lightning (P38) This aircraft was very fast and had a good rate of climb below 20,000 feet. Visibility backwards , downwards and over the engines was very poor.It was considered a good strafer due to its armament ,visibilty,speed and silent motors.Its main drawback were its vulnerability and lack of maneuverability.On the deck, it could out-run the me.109 and fw190.German fighters would always attack the P38s in preference to other allied escort fighters.'

straffo this is no different from what Leadpig posted, Galland's opinion was that the P-38 was not maneuverable. But I believe its not a valid opinion since few people could outmaneuver Galland and his men unless they were flying Spitfires

The P-38L is an interceptor, a role it was ruthlessly efficient as. Bombers and attackers stood no chance against it, and when american intelligence found about officers and VIP's squeduled to fly somewhere, they usually sent the P-38 to assasinate them to make sure the job was done. That it was also an above average dog fighter is only a perk.

[Ack-Ack]

Originally posted by Connection
But I believe its not a valid opinion since few people could outmaneuver Galland and his men unless they were flying Spitfires

 

Yep like Col. John Lowell.



ack-ack

[Kweassa]

Yep like Col. John Lowell.

 Ah, you mean the unproven claim by Lowell that's been propagated for ages amongst P-38 fans? Here's one very famous objection to Lowell's claims which I'm sure many of us had seen around for some time.

I've previously looked at John Lowell's claims in detail, so excuse me for posting on this subject at length. I don't trust Lowell as a source because a very large percentage of his claims that can be checked turn out to be either factual mistakes or embellishments. He's also recounting the events for a book published in 1991 - close to 50 years after the fact. Memory at that distance can be hazy.

 Let's concentrate on what he says in Top Guns: America's Fighter Aces Tell Their Stories, by Joe Foss and Matthew Brennan. The book from which I quote is the first hardcover printing of June, 1991, published by Pocket Books, ISBN 0-671-68317-9.

 The only RAF ace named Donaldson was E.M. "Teddy" Donaldson. He was indeed an RAF ace, although he's much better known for setting a post-war world speed record in the Gloster Meteor. He was named C/O of No. 151 Squadron in November 1938, and led that Squadron until August 5, 1940. His score was 5 destroyed, 1 shared destroyed, and 1 damaged, all on Hurricanes in the summer of 1940. On June 30, 1940 he was shot down into the sea (reportedly by Adolf Galland!). I don't know if he suffered injuries that contributed to him being relieved of command and given a staff assignment in August 1940, but from what I can gather, he saw no more operational flying after 1940. One source I have says he was later attached to the Polish Wing, but it must have been in a primarily non-flying capacity as the detailed table of British aces who had kills with the Polish Wing in Polish Air Aces of World War 2, does not mention him, and neither do the two other detailed works I have on Polish fighter units in WW2. Donaldson, interestingly, spent most of 1942 in America, as an air gunnery instructor at Luke Field!

 So it looks like if the identification is correct, Donaldson had not flown combat for four years, or at the very least had not had a kill for four years, when the mock combat occurred. He may have been a little out of practice...

 Lowell claims that Donaldson was "one of the top English aces" - his five kills would put him somewhere around 800th on the list of RAF/Commonwealth aces. There's no disrespect intended towards Donaldson - he was an ace, and anyone who served during WW2 to ensure our freedom has my respect and gratitude, but he clearly was nowhere near being "one of the top English aces", as Lowell describes him.

 In the short bio at the end of the book, Lowell is credited with "sixteen and a half confirmed; nine probable; eleven damaged."

 However, according to the official USAAF figures, Lowell's actual totals are nowhere near that. Frank Olynyk's American Stars and Bars, the definitive book on the combat totals of US fighter aces, gives Lowell's actual totals as 7.5 kills, 1 probable, and 2 damaged, or about one-third of what Top Guns credits him with. Someone's way off here, and it isn't Olynyk, a man who has devoted himself to the study of USAAF fighter claims, and whose massive 668-page book is written directly from USAAF claim records. Lowell is credited by Olynyk with 9 ground kills, but these are different from air-to-air kills, and even though the 8th AF uniquely recorded ground kills at the time, they were not grouped in with air-to-air kills.

 Lowell is also quoted in Top Guns as saying, "A few years ago, the American Fighter Aces had their annual reunion at Maxwell AFB in Alabama...Gabreski saw me and called me over to his little group...He introduced me as the highest scoring P-38 Ace in Europe..."

 Admittedly this is not Lowell himself talking, but he doesn't bother to right the incorrect impression. Lowell wasn't anywhere close to being the leading P-38 ace in Europe. He had exactly 3 kills and 1 probable while flying the P-38, which puts him behind James Morris (7.333 ETO P-38 kills) and Robin Olds (5.0 ETO P-38 kills), and five other P-38 ETO aces.

 Lowell incorrectly gives the model number of the Spitfire he talks about. He describes it as having "a five-bladed prop, a bigger engine, and more firepower." From the description, it would have to be either a Mk.XII or Mk.XIV, most probably a Mk.XIV. Lowell, however, calls it a Mk.XV, not once, but three times. There was no Spitfire Mk.XV. It didn't exist. The mark number XV was given to the Seafire Mk.XV, which was a Royal Navy aircraft, of which the first one was delivered in October, 1944 (the P-38/Spitfire duel must have taken place in June or July 1944, if Lowell was flying a P-38L as claimed, as the first P-38L was not delivered until June 1944, and the 364th FG was flying missions fully equipped with P-51s by July 27). The fact he gets the mark number wrong may seem insignificant, but it proves that he doesn't have much familiarity with the aircraft he's talking about, and it also proves that the authors did not edit the stories that they recount in the book for historical accuracy. (The book is a series of 27 chapters, each recounting a particular ace's career in his own words. It has a feel remarkably similar to Lawrence Ritter's great baseball book, The Glory of Their Times.)

 Lowell quotes Donaldson as saying, "If one of you bloody bastards has enough guts, I'll fly mock combat above your field and show you how easily this Spit XV can whip your best pilot's ass!"

 I'm sorry, but British people don't talk like that. Americans do. Heck, British people don't even use the word "ass". After the war, Donaldson was the air correspondant for several British newspapers and magazines. I've read his writing, and this doesn't sound like his style.

 Lowell spends much time recounting an air battle between himself and Adolf Galland, when the latter was flying an Fw 190D. Lowell states "One of our last P-38 missions was a flight to protect bombers on a mission to Berlin. My squadron was flying top cover. We were attacked from above, out of the sun, by sixteen long nosed FW-190s."

 Let's hold it right there for a minute. We know that this couldn't have been any later than late July, 1944, for they were an all-Mustang group by that date. When did the Fw 190D, the long-nosed variant, enter service? The Fw 190D-9 entered service with III./JG 54 in September, 1944, two months after the latest date that the fight could have taken place, given Lowell's account. The type of aircraft he claims that he fought in squadron strength was not even in service!

 A poster on another WW2 board who has looked into Lowell's story in detail has tried to reconcile Lowell's claim by seeing if it was possible that Galland was flying a prototype Fw 190D, but says that, "There's a complete list of the prototypes and their history. I couldn't find any suitable prototype that might have been used by Galland - and Lowell mentions an entire flight of "long-nose" Fw 190s anyway, which is entirely impossible at the time. Lowell's account is contradictory in a number of points - for example, the position he quotes doesn't match the landscape he describes."

 So it's not just me that has doubts about Lowell's credibility.

 Lowell, by the way, describes Galland as having "over three hundred victories". Galland actually had 104, which the last time I checked was 196 less than 300.

 Lowell also claims that Galland, when asked if he shot down any P-38s, told him that he had shot down eight. Once again, this can be checked, and once again, it proves false - Galland had no P-38s among his 104 kills. After Galland's 97th kill on November 18, 1941, he was removed from combat flying to serve as General of Fighters. No P-38s, of course, were among those 97 kills, because the US had not even entered the war at that time! He had seven additional kills later in the war, including those while flying "unofficial" missions. These consisted of four B-26s, one B-17, one B-24, and one unidentified aircraft. If the aircraft had been a P-38, I'm sure, with its unmistakable profile, Galland would have been able to identify it. Even if it had been a P-38, that would give him one, not eight. I find it difficult to believe that Galland would either not know the types of aircraft he had shot down, or that he deliberately lied to Lowell. The most generous possibility is that Lowell misunderstood Galland's reply.

It occured to me to check to see if there was a retelling of the Lowell-Galland fight from Galland's side. I checked Fighter General, The Life of Adolf Galland: The Official Biography, by Col. Raymond F. Toliver & Trevor J. Constable, to see if there is any mention of it. There isn't any mention of it whatsoever. Galland, of course, was not an operational pilot at that time, serving as General of Fighters. He did make the occasional flight in an Luftwaffe fighter, to keep current with operational conditions. There is no mention of him using an Fw 190D at all, although he did use an Fw 190A-6, "White 2", in early 1944, and his escape from P-51s in that aircraft is mentioned.

 At the time that the fight must have taken place, according to Lowell, Galland was concerned with organizing the fighter defense against the Allied invasion in Normandy. He took a lengthy inspection trip to assess the state of the German fighters in France shortly before the Allied breakout from Avranches, which would put it right in the timeframe that Lowell claims he fought Galland over Berlin.

(contd.)

[Kweassa]

Lowell later describes another fight with Fw 190s. "One of my missions in a P-51 took us southeast of Berlin to cover B-17 bombers...(I) leveled out at about fifty feet, right in the middle of the German Peenemunde air base...as I streaked across in front of the German hangars, I saw several ME-163 rocket fighters and blasted three of them."

 Lowell claims he was "southeast of Berlin." Peendemunde is on an island, in the Baltic Sea.

 Lowell also describes, during another mission, a running battle with an Me 262, which he claims he eventually shot down. Lowell states, "Ironically no gun camera record or other pilot witness gave me a 'victory' - only a 'probable'."

 With no gun camera film or witnesses, it would be against policy to award a probable in a case such as described, and indeed Lowell was never credited with a probable (or even a damaged, or any other category) against an Me 262. His only credited probable was against an "Me 109" on March 6, 1944.

 Lowell goes on in Top Guns to describe testing the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star after the war. He claims that he was "the first military test pilot to fly the P-80." Here's another story that can be verified - or not. The first military test pilot to fly the Shooting Star was actually a Capt. Lien, who first flew it in February, 1944, when Lowell was still in Europe.

 Lowell goes on to say, "The three P-80s in England had been destroyed by [engine fires]. It happened this way. Several of the top aces in the ETO volunteered to fly the P-80 against the Germans. I wound up number five on the list, until the engine on the first P-80 flown in England caught fire, and the pilot bailed out and was seriously injured. Then I was number three on the list. The second P-80 caught fire at low altitude. Another pilot bailed out and was seriously injured. Then I was volunteer number two. The third jet caught fire on takeoff. The pilot cut the engine, folded the gear, slid off the end of the runway, and was badly burned. Now I was number one. V-E Day came shortly hereafter."

 Quite the story. And once again, we can check independently to see how accurate Lowell is. He gets everything wrong. Everything.

 I'll do a direct quote from Rene Francillon's Lockheed Aircraft Since 1913, on the fate of the four YP-80s sent to Europe during WW2:

 "Four YP-80As were allocated for deployment to Europe to demonstrate their capabilities to combat crews and to help in the development of defensive tactics to be used against the Luftwaffe's jet fighters. Two aircraft were sent to England in mid-December 1944 but on 28 January, 1945, during its second flight in the United Kingdom, 44-83026 crashed, killing its pilot. The other UK-deployed aircraft, 44-83027, was then lent to Rolls-Royce to be fitted as a testbed for the B-41 turbojet; on 14 November, 1945, it was destroyed in a crash-landing after engine failure. More fortunate were the two aircraft (44-83028 and 44-83029) shipped to the Mediterranean theater which survived their demonstration period in Italy."

 So, let's see now. Lowell says there were three P-80s sent to England; there were two, one of which was loaned to Rolls-Royce as a test bed. Lowell says they were to be flown against the Germans; they were sent specifically as demonstration aircraft and to test combat tactics. Lowell claims all three crashed prior to V-E Day; one actually did. Lowell claims there were no pilot fatalities; the one crash prior to V-E Day was fatal.

 I very rarely interject myself into my posts. But here, I feel I have to. I've worked professionally as a writer, editor, research assistant, and proofreader for over 25 years. It's what I do. You learn to get a feel for the validity of a story, just as a truck driver would learn the feel of his truck. Lowell's stories have caused the red flags to come out on more occasions than anything I've read in years. I'm sure that Lowell was a fine fighter pilot, and as I've mentioned, I'm grateful to anyone who defended our freedom in those terrible years. But that doesn't mean that we should just take everything the pilot says at face value without questioning it. Many aces, such as Pierre Clostermann, have had their claims severely questioned by post-war historians. It isn't being disrespectful to search for the truth...

The point is that Lowell consistently embellishes his stories to the point of disbelief and that many of his "facts" are repudiated by reliable historical sources. Much of what he says that can be checked turns out to be wrong. He is simply, in my opinion, not a credible source. One of Lowell's fellow aces has suggested that he was suffering from dementia or Alzheimers when he gave the interview quoted in Top Guns, and I think that's a very real possibility.

 


 So how did Lowell fight Galland who wasn't anywhere around the time and place he described, who was supposedly in a fighter that wasn't even in service yet?